Entanglement, or the Ghost Field - Part Ten: Please Mister Gravedigger
Title: Please Mister Gravedigger, Part Ten of Entanglement
Author: dracox-serdriel
Acknowledgement: A special thanks to my awesome beta reader, rince1wind
Status: Completed as part of horrorbigbang 2013
December scanned through the reports as fast as she could, but the sheer volume bogged her down.
"Your TARDIS has been rounding up bodies and body parts," The Doctor said, considering one of the other screens. "Why? What for?"
"What do you mean, rounding up?" December asked, not taking her eyes off the screen.
"Well, gathering the bodies. Storing them somewhere, right? That's what all this data is about. But where? Are these other numbers some kind of coordinate system?"
"What else would it be?"
"No idea, but this? This doesn't make sense."
Slade considered the newly broken table. He recognized its limbs. They reminded him of that ornate leg he witnessed himself carving.
"This will burn," he said, breaking the rest of the table apart. He stowed one of the legs in his coat. It couldn't hurt to have it just in case.
Vincent had taken over for Molls, pulling the damp clothes away from the wall to ensure that the fire was gone. "Looks like you put it out before it burned to the other side," he said, pulling off the last piece.
Jeet's stomach twisted violently. "Uh, Dean, Sam?"
"We've got to finish this pyre," Dean dismissed as he carried out a chunk of the table.
"You need to see this," Jeet said.
Sam joined her and Vincent. "What?" Sam asked. "After everything - "
He stopped short. The fire had burned through the outer part of the wall and burned off the insulation, which was some kind of odd, porous solid. A slightly charred bone poked out of it.
"Is that...?" Jeet asked.
Sam grabbed pieces of the wall and pulled back. It gave with surprising ease, like the insulation was designed for flexibility.
"I'd say fibula, tibia, and femur," Sam observed. "Human." He started to shift more of the insulation to the side and found more bone. "Looks like they have been articulated against each other horizontally."
"Does that mean something?" Vincent asked, petrified.
"I think," Sam said. "This wall could move. Bend at the, uh, knee joints."
December pulled up a map of the area. "This TARDIS isn't just for travel. She can build safe habitats for a given environment. 'Safe' meaning that she minimizes the risks of introducing foreign chemicals by using as many found materials as possible wherever she lands."
Gwen asked, "Found materials?"
"Okay, don't get upset," December replied. "But it looks like my ship saw these people were stuck, so she... built additions around herself out of their bodies so that, when I woke up, we could get them out of here. Like packing up before you go on holiday."
Even The Doctor couldn't hide his surprise.
"Where does your ship get off grabbing people?" Rose asked.
December objected, "My ship sensed that these people were trapped - somehow because of their remains. She didn't say how, and I'd like to know because, obviously, they were already dead when she found them, but this was the only way she could save them."
"By building their remains into, what?" Rose asked. "Furniture? Clothing? What?"
"Don't be silly, she'd never do that. She likely took their ossified remains and coated them with an insulating agent to make doors and walls."
"That's why the walls look warped?" Gwen asked as calmly as she could. "Because hundreds of dead people are buried in there?"
December nodded.
"No," The Doctor said, looking at the numbers again. "Your ship didn't just bury people in the walls."
"Do the specifics really matter?" December asked.
"Yes!" Gwen shouted.
"Your ship constructed the walls and doors out of the bodies as if they were parts," The Doctor said. "According to this map, these walls, everything she built can move, or maybe more correctly, can flex."
"How do you mean, move?" Rose asked. "How can a wall move?"
"The bones are articulated together in pairs, like joints," December replied. "That's how the doors here can swing open and shut even though we didn't have any hinges."
December turned to them properly. The Doctor seemed a little put out by the ship's dismemberment of the bodies, but Rose and Gwen looked downright horrified.
December shook her head. "You three are all wearing clothes made from cotton and leather. At least one of you is wearing wool."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Gwen asked, but both The Doctor and Rose seemed placated.
"Cotton is processed from plants. Wool from sheep, and leather from cows."
"That's not the same!" Gwen replied.
"Isn't it? What was once a living and unique entity is now part of your wardrobe. But before that happened, it had to be processed so you could wear it," December said calmly. "You walk around wearing bits of other living organisms, but this place shocks you?"
"That's not the same," Gwen said. "For one thing, I need clothing to survive."
"We could argue about this, but it wasn't my call. And it's already done. What we should be figuring out is why my ship thought she could help people by using their remains to make walls. How are dead people stuck? Being dead is like the ultimate unsticking thing."
"That sentence started out really well," Rose said.
"Got away from me," December replied. "So, dead people stuck. Carting off the remains. Anyone?"
"The FBI agents downstairs insisted that the only way to free a ghost is to burn their remains," Gwen said.
"FBI agents dealing with ghosts?" December asked.
"Not time phantoms," The Doctor said. "They were talking about entities, sentient entities, attached to this world after death."
"A trapped soul," December confirmed. "What, you've never seen one?"
"Of course not," The Doctor objected. "They don't exist. Not really."
"Maybe in your universe," December replied, still working at her consoles. "But in my universe, well, it does happen."
The Doctor looked completely shocked. "What does that mean, it happens? How?"
"Well, it's like she said," Rose replied. "In our universe, it doesn't happen. Maybe their parallel world erupted around the nature of the soul."
Gwen laughed.
"What?" Rose asked.
"Sorry, just... I'm inside of a ship that's too big to actually be inside of a building where the walls are made of bone and the halls are haunted by trapped human souls."
"And time echoes," The Doctor said.
"We've got time echoes, too," December replied. "It's not like we've got soul drama and no quantum mechanics."
"What's a soul made of?" Rose asked. "I mean, if you can see it and it does things, then it's gotta be made out of something."
"Energy. Souls are energy," she replied.
"Oh, you," Rose said. "That's what this guy says when I asked him what time is made out of." She pointed to The Doctor.
December smiled at him. "That's a good man."
Dean paged the com. "Rose? JD? Gwen? We, uh, found something."
"What?" Gwen replied over the com.
"The walls. They've got human bone inside them," Dean said.
"Yeah, we know," The Doctor said.
"How did you know?" Dean asked.
"How did you?" Rose shot back.
"Possessed body set fire to the wall," he replied. "Your turn."
"From my logs," December replied.
"Gwen? Is that you?" Dean asked.
"No, that's December," The Doctor replied. "She got trapped here, too. I stumbled into her. Anyway, she's got technology that can help us. We'll get back to you."
"Whatever you're working on, it better include burning this place to ash," Dean replied over the com. "Because that's what I'm going to do."
Dean waited for a reply, but none came. He watched as Molls and Jeet carried Molly's body back inside, followed immediately by Sam and Slade carrying Irwin. Dean got to his feet and helped the others as they built a pyre inside, using the furniture as a base.
Sage stood apart from them.
"You should be helping," Castle said with venom. "After all, this is all your fault."
"I'm... I didn't know," Sage replied sadly.
"We could use your help with the pyre," Jeet said.
Sage nodded and joined them.
Rose pulled The Doctor away from the console for a few minutes. "Doctor," she whispered. "How is there another Time Lord?"
"All the Time Lords in our universe are dead," he said. "But maybe in the parallel where souls are not just theory but can manifest as factual ghosts, they survived."
"Are you going back with her?" Rose asked.
The Doctor's face contorted.
"What, you didn't even consider it?" Rose asked.
"No," he replied, the confused look on his face breaking her heart. "I hadn't."
"But your people are still alive," Rose said. "Doesn't that make you want to go?"
"Maybe the Time Lords are dead here," he replied, taking her hands. "But my people? My family? They're alive. I'm not just gonna swan off on them because some fancy parallel is out there. Gingerbread house."
"Even if I'd go with you?" she asked.
"You can't do," The Doctor replied fondly, touching her cheek. "You've got your mom and dad and a little brother. And of course, there's protecting the earth."
"Sorry to break this up," December said loudly. "But I need a hand."
"Right, sorry," The Doctor replied awkwardly. "We were just talking about how the Time Lords survived in your universe. How did they survive?"
"You make it sound like dying out was our destiny."
"Well," The Doctor said quietly. "Not entirely."
"There was a prophecy," she answered. "It said that if we continued to be apart from other species, we would become a formidable race that policed the entire universe. And eventually, the forces raised against us would be so powerful that the only way to stop them would be to destroy ourselves."
"That's it?" The Doctor asked. "The Time Lords changed, completely, all because of a prophecy?"
"You make it sound absurd," December replied.
"Certainly wouldn't have happened in my world," The Doctor said sadly. He changed the subject, "Now, you said you needed help?"
Castle turned to Molls, who had just dropped onto the couch. "Low."
"What?" Molls asked.
"You asked before, about our chances getting out of here. I just figured I should actually reply."
"We've been in worse," Dean spoke up.
"No you haven't," Castle spat.
"We have," Sam said simply.
Molls asked, "Like what? What could be worse than here?"
"Hell," Dean replied.
"Of course," Vincent said. "Why wouldn't two FBI agents go to hell?"
"We got in. That means we can get out," Sam said.
"Maybe that would easier to believe if we didn't just have to build a pyre to burn the remains of our friends," Vincent said solemnly. "As far as I can tell, this is hell."
"Oh, small, tiny problem," December said.
"What kind of problem?" The Doctor said, donning his glasses.
"You said overlapping universes," December said.
"Cracks between the universes," Rose said. "Splinters."
"Ours and yours," The Doctor said.
"I factored in your universe identification stream from your detector, and... well, take a look," she said, offering the monitor.
"A third universe?" Rose said before The Doctor had a chance.
"I like her," she said to The Doctor. Then she added, "There's a lot of a third universe.
"Well, me and JD are from a separate universe originally," Rose said. "So maybe we're the third universe on here."
"No such luck I'm afraid," The Doctor said. "If it was just us, then the third universe would just be a tiny blip on this screen."
"Equal thirds, nearly," December said.
"So what?" Gwen asked. "If two universes can overlap, why not three? That is what you're saying right? Three overlapping universes."
"Oh, no," The Doctor said.
"Overlapping universes open into their counterparts. Maybe at random or with spikes of energy that are very dangerous, but they open up," December stated.
Rose asked, "You mean this map isn't just focused on the overlap?"
"This map should show us everything, at least in my universe," December replied.
Silence greeted these words. Finally Gwen asked, "So, you're saying we're locked in?"
"So much worse than that," The Doctor replied. "We're in a bounded pocket universe. Essentially, we're nowhere."
Navigation
Entanglement, or the Ghost Field <<< Previous Part:
Part Nine: Welcome to the Machine Primary Post Next Part: >>>
Part Eleven: Borrowed Time
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Please Mister Gravedigger (David Bowie)
There's a little churchyard just along the way
And in this little yard, there's a little old man
With a little shovel in his little bitty hand
He seems to spend all his days puffing fags and digging graves
Please Mr. Gravedigger, don't feel ashamed
Author: dracox-serdriel
Acknowledgement: A special thanks to my awesome beta reader, rince1wind
Status: Completed as part of horrorbigbang 2013
December scanned through the reports as fast as she could, but the sheer volume bogged her down.
"Your TARDIS has been rounding up bodies and body parts," The Doctor said, considering one of the other screens. "Why? What for?"
"What do you mean, rounding up?" December asked, not taking her eyes off the screen.
"Well, gathering the bodies. Storing them somewhere, right? That's what all this data is about. But where? Are these other numbers some kind of coordinate system?"
"What else would it be?"
"No idea, but this? This doesn't make sense."
Slade considered the newly broken table. He recognized its limbs. They reminded him of that ornate leg he witnessed himself carving.
"This will burn," he said, breaking the rest of the table apart. He stowed one of the legs in his coat. It couldn't hurt to have it just in case.
Vincent had taken over for Molls, pulling the damp clothes away from the wall to ensure that the fire was gone. "Looks like you put it out before it burned to the other side," he said, pulling off the last piece.
Jeet's stomach twisted violently. "Uh, Dean, Sam?"
"We've got to finish this pyre," Dean dismissed as he carried out a chunk of the table.
"You need to see this," Jeet said.
Sam joined her and Vincent. "What?" Sam asked. "After everything - "
He stopped short. The fire had burned through the outer part of the wall and burned off the insulation, which was some kind of odd, porous solid. A slightly charred bone poked out of it.
"Is that...?" Jeet asked.
Sam grabbed pieces of the wall and pulled back. It gave with surprising ease, like the insulation was designed for flexibility.
"I'd say fibula, tibia, and femur," Sam observed. "Human." He started to shift more of the insulation to the side and found more bone. "Looks like they have been articulated against each other horizontally."
"Does that mean something?" Vincent asked, petrified.
"I think," Sam said. "This wall could move. Bend at the, uh, knee joints."
December pulled up a map of the area. "This TARDIS isn't just for travel. She can build safe habitats for a given environment. 'Safe' meaning that she minimizes the risks of introducing foreign chemicals by using as many found materials as possible wherever she lands."
Gwen asked, "Found materials?"
"Okay, don't get upset," December replied. "But it looks like my ship saw these people were stuck, so she... built additions around herself out of their bodies so that, when I woke up, we could get them out of here. Like packing up before you go on holiday."
Even The Doctor couldn't hide his surprise.
"Where does your ship get off grabbing people?" Rose asked.
December objected, "My ship sensed that these people were trapped - somehow because of their remains. She didn't say how, and I'd like to know because, obviously, they were already dead when she found them, but this was the only way she could save them."
"By building their remains into, what?" Rose asked. "Furniture? Clothing? What?"
"Don't be silly, she'd never do that. She likely took their ossified remains and coated them with an insulating agent to make doors and walls."
"That's why the walls look warped?" Gwen asked as calmly as she could. "Because hundreds of dead people are buried in there?"
December nodded.
"No," The Doctor said, looking at the numbers again. "Your ship didn't just bury people in the walls."
"Do the specifics really matter?" December asked.
"Yes!" Gwen shouted.
"Your ship constructed the walls and doors out of the bodies as if they were parts," The Doctor said. "According to this map, these walls, everything she built can move, or maybe more correctly, can flex."
"How do you mean, move?" Rose asked. "How can a wall move?"
"The bones are articulated together in pairs, like joints," December replied. "That's how the doors here can swing open and shut even though we didn't have any hinges."
December turned to them properly. The Doctor seemed a little put out by the ship's dismemberment of the bodies, but Rose and Gwen looked downright horrified.
December shook her head. "You three are all wearing clothes made from cotton and leather. At least one of you is wearing wool."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Gwen asked, but both The Doctor and Rose seemed placated.
"Cotton is processed from plants. Wool from sheep, and leather from cows."
"That's not the same!" Gwen replied.
"Isn't it? What was once a living and unique entity is now part of your wardrobe. But before that happened, it had to be processed so you could wear it," December said calmly. "You walk around wearing bits of other living organisms, but this place shocks you?"
"That's not the same," Gwen said. "For one thing, I need clothing to survive."
"We could argue about this, but it wasn't my call. And it's already done. What we should be figuring out is why my ship thought she could help people by using their remains to make walls. How are dead people stuck? Being dead is like the ultimate unsticking thing."
"That sentence started out really well," Rose said.
"Got away from me," December replied. "So, dead people stuck. Carting off the remains. Anyone?"
"The FBI agents downstairs insisted that the only way to free a ghost is to burn their remains," Gwen said.
"FBI agents dealing with ghosts?" December asked.
"Not time phantoms," The Doctor said. "They were talking about entities, sentient entities, attached to this world after death."
"A trapped soul," December confirmed. "What, you've never seen one?"
"Of course not," The Doctor objected. "They don't exist. Not really."
"Maybe in your universe," December replied, still working at her consoles. "But in my universe, well, it does happen."
The Doctor looked completely shocked. "What does that mean, it happens? How?"
"Well, it's like she said," Rose replied. "In our universe, it doesn't happen. Maybe their parallel world erupted around the nature of the soul."
Gwen laughed.
"What?" Rose asked.
"Sorry, just... I'm inside of a ship that's too big to actually be inside of a building where the walls are made of bone and the halls are haunted by trapped human souls."
"And time echoes," The Doctor said.
"We've got time echoes, too," December replied. "It's not like we've got soul drama and no quantum mechanics."
"What's a soul made of?" Rose asked. "I mean, if you can see it and it does things, then it's gotta be made out of something."
"Energy. Souls are energy," she replied.
"Oh, you," Rose said. "That's what this guy says when I asked him what time is made out of." She pointed to The Doctor.
December smiled at him. "That's a good man."
Dean paged the com. "Rose? JD? Gwen? We, uh, found something."
"What?" Gwen replied over the com.
"The walls. They've got human bone inside them," Dean said.
"Yeah, we know," The Doctor said.
"How did you know?" Dean asked.
"How did you?" Rose shot back.
"Possessed body set fire to the wall," he replied. "Your turn."
"From my logs," December replied.
"Gwen? Is that you?" Dean asked.
"No, that's December," The Doctor replied. "She got trapped here, too. I stumbled into her. Anyway, she's got technology that can help us. We'll get back to you."
"Whatever you're working on, it better include burning this place to ash," Dean replied over the com. "Because that's what I'm going to do."
Dean waited for a reply, but none came. He watched as Molls and Jeet carried Molly's body back inside, followed immediately by Sam and Slade carrying Irwin. Dean got to his feet and helped the others as they built a pyre inside, using the furniture as a base.
Sage stood apart from them.
"You should be helping," Castle said with venom. "After all, this is all your fault."
"I'm... I didn't know," Sage replied sadly.
"We could use your help with the pyre," Jeet said.
Sage nodded and joined them.
Rose pulled The Doctor away from the console for a few minutes. "Doctor," she whispered. "How is there another Time Lord?"
"All the Time Lords in our universe are dead," he said. "But maybe in the parallel where souls are not just theory but can manifest as factual ghosts, they survived."
"Are you going back with her?" Rose asked.
The Doctor's face contorted.
"What, you didn't even consider it?" Rose asked.
"No," he replied, the confused look on his face breaking her heart. "I hadn't."
"But your people are still alive," Rose said. "Doesn't that make you want to go?"
"Maybe the Time Lords are dead here," he replied, taking her hands. "But my people? My family? They're alive. I'm not just gonna swan off on them because some fancy parallel is out there. Gingerbread house."
"Even if I'd go with you?" she asked.
"You can't do," The Doctor replied fondly, touching her cheek. "You've got your mom and dad and a little brother. And of course, there's protecting the earth."
"Sorry to break this up," December said loudly. "But I need a hand."
"Right, sorry," The Doctor replied awkwardly. "We were just talking about how the Time Lords survived in your universe. How did they survive?"
"You make it sound like dying out was our destiny."
"Well," The Doctor said quietly. "Not entirely."
"There was a prophecy," she answered. "It said that if we continued to be apart from other species, we would become a formidable race that policed the entire universe. And eventually, the forces raised against us would be so powerful that the only way to stop them would be to destroy ourselves."
"That's it?" The Doctor asked. "The Time Lords changed, completely, all because of a prophecy?"
"You make it sound absurd," December replied.
"Certainly wouldn't have happened in my world," The Doctor said sadly. He changed the subject, "Now, you said you needed help?"
Castle turned to Molls, who had just dropped onto the couch. "Low."
"What?" Molls asked.
"You asked before, about our chances getting out of here. I just figured I should actually reply."
"We've been in worse," Dean spoke up.
"No you haven't," Castle spat.
"We have," Sam said simply.
Molls asked, "Like what? What could be worse than here?"
"Hell," Dean replied.
"Of course," Vincent said. "Why wouldn't two FBI agents go to hell?"
"We got in. That means we can get out," Sam said.
"Maybe that would easier to believe if we didn't just have to build a pyre to burn the remains of our friends," Vincent said solemnly. "As far as I can tell, this is hell."
"Oh, small, tiny problem," December said.
"What kind of problem?" The Doctor said, donning his glasses.
"You said overlapping universes," December said.
"Cracks between the universes," Rose said. "Splinters."
"Ours and yours," The Doctor said.
"I factored in your universe identification stream from your detector, and... well, take a look," she said, offering the monitor.
"A third universe?" Rose said before The Doctor had a chance.
"I like her," she said to The Doctor. Then she added, "There's a lot of a third universe.
"Well, me and JD are from a separate universe originally," Rose said. "So maybe we're the third universe on here."
"No such luck I'm afraid," The Doctor said. "If it was just us, then the third universe would just be a tiny blip on this screen."
"Equal thirds, nearly," December said.
"So what?" Gwen asked. "If two universes can overlap, why not three? That is what you're saying right? Three overlapping universes."
"Oh, no," The Doctor said.
"Overlapping universes open into their counterparts. Maybe at random or with spikes of energy that are very dangerous, but they open up," December stated.
Rose asked, "You mean this map isn't just focused on the overlap?"
"This map should show us everything, at least in my universe," December replied.
Silence greeted these words. Finally Gwen asked, "So, you're saying we're locked in?"
"So much worse than that," The Doctor replied. "We're in a bounded pocket universe. Essentially, we're nowhere."
Navigation
Entanglement, or the Ghost Field <<< Previous Part:
Part Nine: Welcome to the Machine Primary Post Next Part: >>>
Part Eleven: Borrowed Time
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Please Mister Gravedigger (David Bowie)
There's a little churchyard just along the way
And in this little yard, there's a little old man
With a little shovel in his little bitty hand
He seems to spend all his days puffing fags and digging graves
Please Mr. Gravedigger, don't feel ashamed